AltWeeklies Wire
Wild Guitar Tamer: Loren Dircks' 'Killing the Magic'new
This singer-songwriter, who for years led Gila Bend, is exploring other music influences — and his new the album couldn't be more interesting.
Tucson Weekly |
Gene Armstrong |
12-31-2009 |
Reviews
Tags: Killing the Magic, Loren Dircks
Addition by Subtractionnew
After two albums of wispy, hushed folk with electronic atmospherics, only vocalist John Orth and guitarist Jeff Hays remained in Holopaw - yet after recruiting a handful of new members and a smattering of additional players, the band has released album of magnificent heights and gorgeous depths.
Tucson Weekly |
Michael Petitti |
12-31-2009 |
Reviews
Making More Lists: Our Critics Keep Naming the Best Music of 2009new
Our annual saga of music Top 10 lists kicked off recently, and now we present to you the thrilling conclusion of Our Favorite Albums of 2009. One of the albums named: Vic Chesnutt's At the Cut.
Tucson Weekly |
Jarret Keene, Curtis McCrary, Michael Petitti and Stephen Seigel |
12-31-2009 |
Reviews
Tags: Year in Review
It's Over-Complicated: Meryl Streep is Terrible in Nancy Meyers' New Movienew
While there are some good laughs in It's Complicated, the latest from writer-director Nancy Meyers, the film is actually done in by a surprising culprit of bad overacting—none other than the ever-reliable Meryl Streep.
Tucson Weekly |
Bob Grimm |
12-31-2009 |
Reviews
Tags: It's Complicated, Nancy Meyers
No Whiners: Lewis Black Has Been Hard at Work on a Booknew
Lewis Black says he was locked indoors for the better part of December, working on a new book. His work — standup, television appearances, books, etc. — is basically one giant, irritated rant.
Tucson Weekly |
Amanda Portillo |
12-31-2009 |
Performance
You May Think the Idea of Box Sets is Passé... Until You See These Releasesnew
Given file-sharing and the growing number of digital-download Web sites, both legal and otherwise, owning a bunch of music by one artist on several CDs in a cardboard box (no matter how cool the graphics and extras) is so old-school.
Tucson Weekly |
Gene Armstrong |
12-10-2009 |
Reviews
Devendra Banhart: 'What Will We Be'new
After making the transition from his early ramshackle folk into the bombastic shape-shifting of 2007's Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, Devendra Banhart attempts here to appropriate his entire career, with mixed results.
Tucson Weekly |
Michael Petitti |
12-10-2009 |
Reviews
Tags: What Will We Be, Devendra Banhart
Cold Cave: 'Love Comes Close'new
On Cold Cave's debut, the music works as minimalist dance pop, but everything about the way it's contextualized is awful. The title song, essentially a morbid exaltation of love and death set to disco beats, nicely distills the band's lack of imagination.
Tucson Weekly |
Sean Bottai |
12-10-2009 |
Reviews
Candye Kane's More Than 20 Years of Blues, Country, Roots Rock and Jazznew
The singer's most recent challenge was the discovery that she had pancreatic cancer, an illness she has since overcome. The healing process inspired her to create her ninth album, Superhero, which was released earlier this year by Delta Groove Records.
Tucson Weekly |
Gene Armstrong |
12-10-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Superhero, Candye Kane
'Invictus' Starts Out Strong, But Devolves Into a Mediocre Sports Movienew
The film seems like it's on its way to greatness in the beginning, with Nelson Mandela dealing with the difficulties of being South Africa's first black president. Unfortunately, the film goes off track; by its underwhelming sporting-event finale, it has completely lost focus.
Tucson Weekly |
Bob Grimm |
12-10-2009 |
Reviews
'Bronson' Fails at Melding Violence, Artsy Filmmaking and Naked Penisesnew
Knowing that there's an audience of action-loving young men who'll pay to see violence and bloodshed, director Nicolas Winding Refn loaded his movie up with fighting, Dada-esque mime sequences and full frontal male nudity. Because: Huh?
Tucson Weekly |
James DiGiovanna |
12-10-2009 |
Reviews
Tags: Bronson, Nicolas Winding Refn
A Congressman Uncovers Two Studies Showing the Impacts of Illegal Immigration, Smugglingnew
The federal government's border fence has been called the Tortilla Curtain. But in the swamp of border politics, there's a more effective barrier at play, one that filters ideas rather than people. It explains why most Americans still don't fully understand the disaster on our southern border.
Tucson Weekly |
Leo W. Banks |
12-10-2009 |
Immigration
Water Rights: An Activist Faces Prison after Refusing his Sentence for 'Littering'new
On Dec. 4, a year after he was cited for littering on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, activist Walt Staton was back in federal court, because he refused to pick up garbage.
Tucson Weekly |
Tim Vanderpool |
12-10-2009 |
Immigration
Genetic Detectives: Find Out Where You Fit on the Family Treenew
I'm one of more than 300,000 people who have sent cheek cells to the Genographic Project, an effort of the National Geographic Society and IBM that hopes to assemble a database of DNA samples to better understand the migrations of humans tens of thousands of years ago.
Tucson Weekly |
Jim Nintzel |
12-10-2009 |
Science
Converge Reaches for Diversitynew
Axe to Fall aims to recapture a bit of the profoundly alien sensibility and weird terror that consistently puts 2001's Jane Doe at the top of any metalhead/punker's desert-island disc list.
Tucson Weekly |
Jarret Keene |
12-02-2009 |
Reviews
Tags: Axe To Fall, Converge
